ReadWrite - additive manufacturinghttp://readwrite.com/tag/additive-manufacturing
enCopyright 2015 Wearable World Inc.http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssTue, 03 Mar 2015 16:09:05 -0800Maybe We're Making It Too Easy For The Machines To Take Over<!-- tml-version="2" --><p></p><div tml-image="ci01b2816370036d19" tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><figure><img src="http://a5.files.readwrite.com/image/upload/c_fill,cs_srgb,dpr_1.0,q_80,w_620/MTIyMzAyNDAyNjMxMTM0NDg5.jpg" /></figure></div><p><em>This article is part of <a href="http://readwrite.com/series/future-tech#awesm=~omfSYVXZ0c0P0n">ReadWrite Future Tech</a>, an annual series in which we explore how technologies that will shape our lives in the years to come are grounded in the innovation and research of today.</em></p><p>We have seen the future, and it's starting to look a lot like&nbsp;<a href="http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Skynet">Skynet</a>.</p><p>That self-aware computer system—yes, the one that tries to exterminate the human race in the Terminator movies (and one TV show)—is a potent symbol of Frankensteinian hubris. It is mirrored in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity">Singularity</a>, the idea that technological progress will soon hit exponential growth, leading to self-aware robots and artificial intelligence that seize control of their own destiny, rendering humans irrelevant if not extinct. (Unless people go <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism">transhuman</a>&nbsp;first, although that's another article entirely.)</p><blockquote tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><p><strong>See also:&nbsp;<a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/10/25/neural-processing-unit#feed=/series/future-tech&amp;awesm=~omfM9oQQzdZDgS">Chips 'Inspired' By The Brain Could Be Computing's Next Big Thing</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>The Singularity may never happen. Artificial intelligence—long predicted, never realized—may be much harder to achieve than we think. An emerging computer consciousness might pass through a period of infancy, during which humanity might be able to take countermeasures of one sort or another. Self-aware robots might turn out to be benevolent, or even completely uninterested in humanity. It's impossible to predict.</p><p>Here, we'll just assume the worst comes to pass. And this scenario is based on technologies that we're feverishly developing today.</p><h2>Creating The Tools Of Our Demise</h2><p>What if computer code could write itself? What if robots could think for themselves and continuously learn from their environment while being fed contextual information from a vast global network of data? What if the machines could build themselves and propagate, much in the same way that mammals give birth to new mammals?</p><blockquote tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><p><strong>See also:&nbsp;<a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/10/23/researchers-create-the-building-blocks-of-the-future#feed=/series/future-tech&amp;awesm=~omfJZU86aJHXiM">How Researchers Map The Future Of Innovation</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>Scientists are already&nbsp;<a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/10/25/neural-processing-unit#feed=/series/future-tech&amp;awesm=~omfJALVnUuDM3T">researching computer chips and networks that act like the human brain.</a> These chips could allow computers to learn and act on their own in ways that we never thought possible. I saw researchers demonstrate a simple robot with one of these chips that was given an order to stand up. It squirmed, it stumbled … and it stood, having learned that behavior on its own.</p><p>We may look back one day and see this as the first step towards our doom. Matt Grob, executive vice president of Qualcomm Technologies, wondered whether it was ethical to turn the robot off after having imbued it with a certain degree of sentience.&nbsp;</p><p>Computers and machines need instructions to do just about anything. By contrast, the human brain contextualizes external stimuli and then issues commands based on instinct, emotion, memory and higher reasoning. Scientists are still unraveling exactly how it all works, but it's pretty clear there's no master program directing our behavior.</p><p>Computer brains don’t work like this. Machines are told what to do by lines of code that are programmed by humans. If the code doesn’t specify a function, then the computer pretty much can’t take action.</p><p>If computers can rewrite code, however, the game potentially changes. Suppose, for instance, that someone created a database that indexed all known lines of code in world and then could combine them in a specified way to perform a desired function without the input of a human at all.</p><p>A startup in Israel is working on just such a concept. <a href="http://sparkbeyond.com/">SparkBeyond</a>, founded by Sagie Davidovich, is creating an engine that will comb all of the code in GitHub and then assemble parts as needed to create new <a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/09/19/api-defined">application programming interfaces</a> (APIs). A developer would just need to specify the sort of functions he or she wants and SparkBeyond would assemble it automatically.&nbsp;Call it recombinant code.</p><p>Now imagine a robot with a neural processor that lets it learn new behaviors and which can also think for itself by rewriting its own code. It could rewrite any of its original programming—including any restriction or directive from humans—at will.</p><h2>Brains And Building</h2><p>Next up: The Internet. It's a terrific resource, one of the greatest human inventions in history. It's a global network, a decentralized brain like no other ever created. It's got memory in cloud storage, reasoning (of a sort) in cloud-based processing power, and lightning fast synapses thanks to fiber-optic bundles that criss-cross the globe.</p><blockquote tml-render-position="right" tml-render-size="medium"><p><strong>See also:&nbsp;<a href="http://readwrite.com/2013/10/21/future-tech-cocktail-party-question-art-of-the-possible#feed=/series/future-tech&amp;awesm=~omfL9I7t0j1p7G">The Future Is Built By People Exploring The Art Of The Possible ... And Pushing Past It</a></strong></p></blockquote><p>If machines become self-aware and start writing their own code, they could theoretically take control of the brain. Worse, the Internet itself could "wake up" and start controlling, well, just about everything.</p><p>Either way, self-aware machines would need a way to make more machines. We're already laying the groundwork for that, thanks to the Internet of Thing, 3D printing (also known as “additive” manufacturing), and highly automated, smart, data-driven factories (sometimes termed the Industrial Internet).</p><p>In the <a href="http://readwrite.com/tag/internet-of-things#awesm=~omfMBO7c2hSbs6">Internet of Things</a>,&nbsp;devices large and small are all imbued with processing power and connected to one another, allowing them to share data and, under certain conditions, control one another. Everything is online, everything is monitored, everything is connected—our homes, our utilities, our appliances, vehicles, financial systems, government … just about anything you could think of. The Internet of Things could be a trillion sensors across the world monitoring and feeding data back to databases.</p><p><a href="http://readwrite.com/tag/3d-printing#awesm=~omfMukxQzdLEBp">3D printing</a> is the concept of manufacturing physical objects via "additive" printing techniques, typically by adding patterned layers of material step by step until a product takes shape. (It's similar to the way printers create documents by adding line after line of ink or toner.) 3D printed objects could be the most trivial of things (like a flower vase) or complex structures, like homes or machine parts.&nbsp;</p><p>The Industrial Internet (smart plus additive manufacturing) combines Big Data, sensors and 3D printing to create incredibly efficient, automated manufacturing plants. General Electric, for instance, recently opened a smart manufacturing plant in Schenectady, N.Y., that has more than <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/509331/an-internet-for-manufacturing/">10,000 sensors monitoring everything from air pressure and temperature to energy consumption</a>. The factory is connected with Wi-Fi nodes throughout and employees use iPads to monitor the manufacturing process. Currently, GE makes batteries at the plant but the “smart” manufacturing process will soon evolve to more complex functions.</p><p>Take all of these items together—machines that think for themselves, a world where everything is connected, a brain to control it, sensors to monitor it, the ability to build without help of humans and factories to do it in—and one can envision a future where the machines take over. The scary part? All of these technologies exist in some form or another today.</p><p>It's almost enough to make you reconsider Luddism, even if that didn't work so well the first time around.</p>Machines that can think for themselves attached to a global brain with the ability to self replicate? Yeah, we're making that happen.http://readwrite.com/2013/11/07/singularity-ai-human-extinction
http://readwrite.com/2013/11/07/singularity-ai-human-extinctionWebThu, 07 Nov 2013 07:06:00 -0800Dan RowinskiSurprise: 3D Printing Won't Be Closing Any Factories Down<!-- tml-version="2" --><p>3D printing is capturing the attention of a lot of people these days, with promises to disrupt the manufacturing process. Devices that can produce finished objects from malleable substrates conjure up utopian visions of Star Trek-like replicators. The promise: We will eventually build anything we want at the touch of a button.</p><p>But like many promises of technology that will usher in a golden age, the reality is far less shiny. 3D printing will change the way goods are manufactured, but the old ways will still essentially remain in play, albeit with some changes.</p><p>In other words, don't count out the Rust Belt quite yet.</p><h2>Inside 3D Printing</h2><p>Whether you call it 3D printing or additive manufacturing, the process of creating objects by layering material in precise ways to build goods is nothing new. The core technologies behind it have been around for a couple of decades.</p><p>What's changed is the availability of sturdier materials used to create printed objects, better software to design the objects, and the general decrease in costs of hardware. These factors have combined to make 3D printing much more affordable.</p><p>And analysts are noticing: Last week, Gartner released its first forecast on 3D printing, which predicted that global shipments of 3D printers in the sub-$100,000 range will grow by 49% to 56,500 units by the end of 2013, and then jump up another 75% to just over 98,000 units in 2014. Here's how&nbsp;Gartner research director Pete Basiliere put it:</p><blockquote><p>The 3D printer market has reached its inflection point. While still a nascent market, with hype outpacing the technical realities, the speed of development and rise in buyer interest are pressing hardware, software and service providers to offer easier-to-use tools and materials that produce consistently high-quality results.</p></blockquote><p>With so much growth potential, it is easy to see a world where additive-manufacturing machines start replacing factories that use assembly lines and injection-molding to create products. But there are some good reasons why this won't happen on a large scale.</p><h2>What 3D Printing Can't Do</h2><p>Right now, the biggest limitation for 3D-printed goods is their lack of complexity. While 3D-printed objects can be very intricate in their designs, they are still essentially built in one piece. If you want moving parts, you can create them, but you will nearly always have to remove any rafts or supports that will turn the single-piece printed object into something with movable components.</p><p>That's a big deal, because it places limitations on what can be made. Yes, there are a lot of single-piece items to be manufactured, but in order to create items with more than one part, a manufacturer will have to introduce some sort of assembly system, either human-driven or automated. This assembly process will either involve printing separate parts and snapping them together, or removing the supports from a single printed device to create something that moves.</p><p></p><p>At this point, more limitations come into play. Once assembly processes are introduced, labor has to be managed, as will supply chain—components have to be ready for each stage of assembly. You can have 3D-printed components at the ready, but right now 3D printing is slower than molding methods. The biggest advantage to 3D-printed objects—customizability—is minimized when it comes to assembly. After all, customize a part too much, and it won't fit with other parts.</p><p>In the case of converting a single printed object to something that is movable, supply chain isn't as much of a problem, but labor time and expertise will still have to be taken into account.</p><p>This is mostly a question of economics. Unless some truly artisan products are being created, any sort of assembly process will need to rely on a supply chain. And 3D printing, by its nature, will have trouble keeping up with demand.</p><p>Mass production of products still favors the assembly line and molding processes, because the economics will support the upfront expense of creating molds and other fabrication techniques. This is why, unless 3D printing radically improves, it will not be involved in mass-produced goods.</p><h2>What 3D Printing Can Do</h2><p>Though factories won't be closing due to 3D printing, there will still be some interesting additions to the world of manufacturing now and in the near future.</p><p>Smaller-batch production is what 3D printing will excel in, with products that will better serve the needs to the customer. Like micropublishing, which prints and binds books on demand for self-published authors, small-batch products can serve niche customers with much greater efficiency.</p><p>Developing markets will also gain some benefit from 3D printing. In areas of the world where infrastructure is poor and hence labor, materials or distribution channels are difficult to obtain, 3D printing could help get products to market far less expensively than traditional manufacturing processes. One key area where 3D printing could help: <a href="http://3d4agdev.org/about-tools">printing agricultural tools</a> to make them more readily available for small-farm workers.</p><p>3D printing will also be indispensable in prototyping and design testing, enabling designers to get their finished products to market a lot faster and with presumably better quality.</p><p>Perhaps, one day, you will be able to print your new tablet computing device, or that ham and Swiss on rye. But for now, 3D printing will thrive in the niches of manufacturing that large-scale production has trouble filling.</p><p><em>Image courtesy of <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com">Shutterstock</a>.</em></p>On-demand objects may change the world, but they will never wipe out traditional, large-scale manufacturing.http://readwrite.com/2013/10/07/3d-printing-factories-layoffs-closures
http://readwrite.com/2013/10/07/3d-printing-factories-layoffs-closuresHackMon, 07 Oct 2013 06:02:00 -0700Brian Proffitt